Matt Towers – Red Lodge Clay Center

Matt TowersWest Hartford, Connecticut


Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident (AIA) 2012

Matthew Towers received his B.F.A. in Theater from New York University and his M.F.A. in Ceramics from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.  He is currently a Professor of Ceramics at the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford in Connecticut where he has been teaching full-time since 1997. In the summer of 2012 Towers completed a residency through the Artists Invite Artists program at the Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Montana, and in the summer of 2000, he was an artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. In 2004 he received a grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and in 2013 he was awarded a grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Arts Innovation and Collaboration Program through Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT.

Matt’s work has been shown nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions such as Ceramics ‘97, Ceramics ‘99 ,  Ceramics 2001 and Ceramics 2005 (CT), White on White (MD), NCECA 2005 Clay National Exhibition (MD), Real Art Ways (CT),   2015 NCECA Biennial, (RI), Contemporary Ceramics at the Fort Collins Lincoln Center (CO) in 2016, H20 at WaterBar in Minneapolis, MN in 2019, and various venues throughout the country –  Greenwich House Pottery (NYC), Pewabic Pottery (MI), The Elmhurst Art Museum, (IL), The Slater Memorial Museum (CT), The Archie Bray Foundation (MT), the Wexler Gallery (PA) and the Philadelphia Clay Studio (PA).

He has also lectured at the University of Washington (WA), Sienna Heights University (MI), The University of Connecticut (CT), The University of Long Beach (CA), Rhode Island School of Design (RI), Alfred University (NY), Northern Arizona University (AZ) and the University of Alaska (AK).  His work is in the collections of The Jingdezhen Museum of Ceramics (China), The Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, (NY), The Archie Bray Foundation (MT) and the Pfannebecker Collection (PA). His work is featured in the books Sex Pots Eroticism in Ceramics by Paul Mathieu, Overseas Contemporary Ceramic Art Classics by Bai Ming, 500 Vases by Lark Books, 500 Tea Pots, Volume 2 also by Lark Books and Mastering the Potter’s Wheel by Ben Carter.

I convey personal narrative by making pots that express my distinctive viewpoint on form, materiality and context.  To inaugurate this body of work, I constructed vessels that lack direct reference to traditional ceramic forms.  Made from translucent porcelain that begins to tear as they are stretched to their limits, buoyed or subjugated by brutalist iron-like earthenware base forms, they set the stage for the first two chapters, “Struggling to Regain My Breath” and “When in Dire Distress”.

This work introduces a series within a series; a non-linear, episodic evolution laid out in titled “chapter-like” groupings or singular forms that are often autobiographical.  They chronicle my Soundings on personal experiences as well as societal commotions and trends.